C-evo advances affecting ground units
Many of C-evo's advances add some factor to future unit design or allow a building that strengthens all units in a city. Conversely, some advances made by your opponents may reduce the effect of your units. Table summarizing benefits :Notes: ::''This shows effects on other units where an advance affects them too ::The Manual divides advances into four groups, based roughly on chronology, but an alphabetical listing has advantages and is used here. Other arrangements of these data are possible and are likely to be created as alternatives by selective copying from this table when it has all links in. ::Abbreviations: :::"Cost to" stands for "Cost multiplier increased to"; "Cost +" (used for a Future Technology) means Cost multiplier increases by the specified amount; see http://c-evo.org/forum/p-397-1.html and http://c-evo.org/forum/p-397-1-1-1.html for relevant forum postings about cost :::"Max wt" stands for "Maximum weight that type of unit rises to" :::"Str" stands for "Strength multiplier" :::"Trans" stands for "Transport multiplier" :: The term "multiplier" may seem misleading for ''additive "factors" but is correct. Advances for strength of future ground unit designs If you start designing ground units after researching Warrior Code but no other relevant advances, the strength of your basic attack module ("weapons") and of your basic defensive module ("armor") is 4. Each relevant advance researched will add to each module's strength the number shown. ;First, listing alphabetically *(+): Bridge Building - allows "Overweight" units, adding, at some cost in construction and mobility and maybe ongoing maintenance, a weapons module and an armor module, which may be over and above your standard weight limit) *2: Bronze Working *2: Chivalry *8: Composites *6: Democracy *4: Explosives *3: Gunpowder *2: Iron Working *8: Laser *10: Material Technology (25 possible; and it similarly boosts naval units) *7: Mobile Warfare *3: Monotheism *6: Radio *8: Robotics *6: Tactics ;Second, listing in size order, in a fairly likely order of discovery within each group :Note that the boosts are not necessarily greater for "higher" advances *Discoverable without Science **2: Bronze Working **2: Iron Working **2: Chivalry **3: Monotheism **3: Gunpowder - Note that if you are concerned to improve naval transport, without great concern about strength, you should try to get both Engineering and Navigation and design new ships (with more speed and capacity than Longboats and able to cross Ocean) before you get Gunpowder and certainly before you get Explosives *Requiring Science but before Mass Production **4: Explosives - enables Engineers and the building of canals **5: Tactics - possibly the first one you want after discovering Science, as it lets you build a Military Academy to produce elite ground units, important if you are having difficulty with enemy ground units. It has air unit value too. However, if you want your first air units to be as cheap as possible, defer Tactics because it adds 50% to the price. You need it only for spy planes (unless you are very lucky and have a friend who will give you Intelligence first). **6: Democracy **6: Radio - has naval unit value (extended vision) too **7: Mobile Warfare *Requiring Mass Production **8: Robotics - enables Manufacturing Plant; prerequisite of Advanced Flight (the only advance in this group that is essential for building a spaceship) **8: Laser - one prerequisite of Smart Weapons, the top non-future air unit booster **8: Composites - has air unit value too, once you want Bombers **10: Material Technology (25 possible; and it similarly boosts naval units) Maximum numbers of specific modules Initially you are allowed either one or two armor modules. The researching of Steel raises the maximum to three. There is no fixed maximum for weapons modules or speed enhancements but they all use up part of the weight quota. Total strength at various stages :(including the basic 4) :See more detail at the Ground units (C-evo) page *Bronze Working: 6, allowing (with Horseback Riding) combinations including the fairly safe early scout 18/12/1.5 and the often successful raider 18/6/2.5. *Add either Iron Working or Chivalry: 8, allowing, e.g., a good defensive unit for cities or rough terrain: 24/16/1.5; if it is hardened and fortified, its defensive strength will be 32, which defeats a hardened "18/" attacker. *With both Iron Working and Chivalry: 10, allowing, e.g., 30/20/1.5, a very good counter to the 18/6/2.5 or 18/12/1.5 commonly produced early by AI nations (noted above at Bronze Working) *Just Bronze Working, Iron Working and Gunpowder: 11, allowing, e.g., 33/22/1.5 or 33/11/2.5; a common AI choice but relatively poor value for money *Without Gunpowder but including Chivalry and Monotheism: 13, allowing 39/26/1.5, which (if hardened) resists an enemy's very common hardened "48/" if behind City Walls or on a mountain or fortified on a hill *Add Gunpowder: 16, allowing, e.g., 48/32/1.5 or 48/16/2.5 - both very often built by AI players and probably by human players, because the next increase requires several more advances. For defending cities and sometimes forming part of an advancing army, where roads or rivers can be used, try 64/16/2: it can advance along a road or river, shoot, then retreat to safety all in the one turn (though if the first move is 0.6 the retreat can be only 0.4) *Add Explosives: 20, allowing, e.g., 60/40/1.5, 60/20/2.5, or (like the 64/16/2 above) 80/20/2 *Add Explosives and Tactics: 25, allowing, e.g., 75/50/1.5, 75/25/2.5, or with Artillery 50/25/2.5 - a nasty surprise if an enemy produces one and you thought your walls would protect you for ever *Steel (allows third armor, taking an extra 2 from the weight quota), allowing, e.g., 25/75/1.5, commonly used by AI to sit almost invincible beside your cities to protect the AI's fast attackers *Automobile adds three to the weight quota, allowing, e.g., 200/25/1.5, 100/75/1.5, 150/25/2.5, 100/25/3.5. You may go straight on for one step to get Mobile Warfare, adding 7 to the strength with only minor cost increase, producing, e.g., 256/32/1.5, 128/96/1.5, etc., but it is more cost-effective to have Democracy and Radio before Mobile Warfare because they add strength without taking the cost above that of Mobile Warfare. *Maximum strength before Mass Production (including Democracy, Mobile Warfare, and Radio): 44, allowing, e.g., 352/44/1.5, 176/132/1.5, 264/44/2.5, 176/44/3.5 (or one fewer attack module replaced by Artillery) - but if you can wait for Mass Production and add Robotics you can get stronger units more cheaply in the long run. *Mass Production (which allows cheaper units if a city produces four or more consecutively) opens up lines to Composites, Robotics, and The Laser, each of which adds 8, so that strength can go to 52, 60, or 68. But it is possible that a nation has not researched all of the lower advances: Chivalry, for example, which would reduce each of those totals by 2. *Total before Material Technology: 68 Because some of the other desirable enhancements, such as the very common Artillery and rarer Alpine, may use some of the weight quota, the higher levels of attack or movement indicated above may be uncommon. Also, any nation may create overweight units that are stronger after researching Bridge Building, though AI nations rarely if ever do that. It is often possible to work out which advances another nation used for any of its units that you encounter. Advances for maximum weight of future ground unit designs *5: Warrior Code, which also allows Barracks, which heal units faster and out of which all units start life hardened, i.e. with 50% more strength than the basic unit *7: Horseback Riding (which adds nothing to the cost multiplier, so is a good option to wait for) *10: Automobile Cost multiplier The cost per module: *3: Warrior Code *4: Bronze Working *5: Chivalry or Iron Working; also Democracy, but that looks like a design error, because Tactics (cost 10) is a prerequisite *7: Monotheism *8: Gunpowder *9: Explosives *10: Tactics, which importantly allows a Military Academy *11: Radio *12: Mobile Warfare *14: The Laser *15: Robotics or Composites In addition, the cost is increased by 2 for each advance you make in Material Technology (which requires you to have researched Composites and therefore starts from 15). Some of the attributes you can include will add a little to the cost too. You see an indication of that on the design screen, where additions to cost or weight have appropriate icons. Units available early in the game Caution: creating units with no attack strength may be false economy, partly because they are defined as "Civil units" and cannot capture cities even if the city is unguarded so that you want to walk in. Note that quoted costs are for medium level of difficulty; each will be 25% lower if you are in easy mode and 25% higher if you are in insane mode; fractions are rounded down if there's a fraction above a whole number (e.g. 10 becomes 7 or 12). When considering defensive strength, note that a unit that did not move in the previous turn has "an additional 50% strength bonus" from fortifying. (The game documentation is slightly ambiguous about what that is 50% of, but it is fairly certain to be just 50% of the basic defensive strength.) Earliest possible units Existing designs Before designing any of your own, you can build Militia (6/6/1.5) and Town Guard (4/6/1.5 outside a city, 4/12/1.5 inside). If built after you have a Barracks, they will start life hardened, as with any other ground units, i.e. with strengths 50% greater than the basic. Designing new units All that you need is to research Warrior Code, which has no prerequisites and allows: * ground units, having at least one armor module plus your choice of weapons modules (up to defined limits) and/or a second armor module, with each weapons or armor module having a strength of 4 and costing 3 resources * the building of Barracks; a barracks adds 50% strength to all weapons or armor modules of units built in the same city, and it speeds recovery of damaged units there Minimum requirement is a single armor module for defense, which takes two of the weight allowance of five. You may add other modules up to the weight quota. ;Weak cheap units that need only Warrior Code: :'Minimum armor': :(with defensive strength of only 4 they will be vulnerable to fairly easy destruction by any other nation's basic Militia unit (6/6) unless they have a terrain bonus such as hill, forest, or jungle) :*0/4 costing 3 - but if you produce more than 3 resources per turn you may waste much of the surplus unless it is transferred to a subsequent building or more costly unit :*4/4 costing 6 - if built with a Barracks it will initially equal a standard Militia built without a Barracks but cost about 40% fewer resources :*8/4 costing 9 :*12/4 costing 12 - think of it as the first javelin-thrower, crouching in a city protected by stronger units but able to kill almost any primitive attacker foolish enough to stop too close :'Double armor''': :*0/8 costing 6 - a very safe early scout but unable to capture foreign cities :*4/8 costing 9 - a very safe early scout with better defense than a standard Militia and costing fewer resources Onwards and upwards Next useful advances, available from the start, are Bronze Working for added strength and Horseback Riding for added "weight" and mobility. Normally you would research both before doing any military research. Even with those, the combinations of modules are complex enough to deserve a separate article. Later other advances will allow even more complexity and choice as other attributes become available. Fanaticism Units that are destroyed in battle may destroy their targets or attackers too. The discovery of Communism (requiring Industrialization and Philosophy), irrespective of whether you adopt that government type, allows you to spend a little more on the construction of air or ground units that are Fanatics if you build that into their design: they fight harder, and if destroyed they deal the opponent twice the normal damage. If the normal damage would be 50% or more, the doubling means that the enemy is destroyed too. Kamikaze at its best. Mass Production leads to final pushes Fairly late in the game, when you or a cooperative friend have researched Mass Production, strength can be augmented with Composites, The Laser, and Robotics, and finally as many advances in Material Technology as you can manage while not neglecting other profitable advances. A powerful attack unit you can design before any Material Technology would be 476/68/1.5 with Artillery, costing 135 resources to build. Once you have researched Mass Production yourself, you will be able to design units for Line Production, which (without taking up any of the weight quota) gives you all except the first in a row at half the resource cost - ideal for combining with your Military Academy. See also *C-evo advances affecting units *C-evo advances affecting air units *C-evo advances affecting naval units * *Ground Category:Guides (C-evo) Category:Lists (C-evo)